While recording his first solo album, it would have been easy for Darius Rucker, lead singer of '90s pop/rock phenomenon Hootie & the Blowfish, to simply draw from his musical background. It turns out he did. The soul and pop-powered Back To Then, his debut, is "the record I thought I was going to make before I joined Hootie," says Rucker. "With this album, I'm just going back to where I came from." Two years in the making, the aptly titled Back To Then takes its cues from Rucker's Charleston, South Carolina childhood-one peppered with living room sing-alongs to R&B music by such Rucker "heroes" as Gladys Knight, Otis Redding, and Al Green. Recalls Rucker; "It was always my dream to be a singer. I'd sit and listen to their songs and cry. Great voices always do that to me." Later inspirations include the late Notorious B.I.G., whose rap artistry "was a life-changing event" for Rucker. "After that I just wanted to devour all the good R&B and rap that I could. Then when Hootie & the Blowfish decided to chill for a while after spending the last 10 years on the road, I decided I'd finally make my R&B record."

Unlike the rustic roots-rock fodder Darius Rucker has become known for as frontman for Hootie & The Blowfish, his debut BACK TO THEN has its roots in the R&B he was exposed to by his mom as a kid growing up in South Carolina. To that end, Rucker signed on to neo-soul diva Jill Scott's Hidden Beach imprint and delivers 13 soulful cuts that include "Sometimes I Wonder," a breathy duet with Scott (who the genial singer describes as his Tammi Terrell).

In keeping with the album's overall theme, Rucker includes a cover of Al Green's "I'm Glad You're Mine" dedicated to his late mother Carolyn and packed with the perfect combination of snappy rhythms, laid-back horn arrangements and subtle phrasing that would do Willie Mitchell and Reverend Green proud. Other songs of note include the hand-in-glove Snoop Dogg duet "Sleeping In My Bed," the mellow, horn-driven "Wild One," and a raw, goosebump-inducing a cappella reading of "Amazing Grace" that segues into the lush gospel crossover workout "Somewhere." Hootie fans will be interested to check out Rucker's testifying throughout "Ten Years," the final say on a failed relationship first chronicled on the 1995 hit "Let Her Cry."